


Bygones

by superyong



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Implied Sexual Content, M/M, Mafia AU, Mentions of Violence, Physical combat, use of weapons
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-19
Updated: 2019-06-26
Packaged: 2020-05-14 21:31:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,801
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19281571
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/superyong/pseuds/superyong
Summary: It wasn’t fair, the way a person could still be there without being there. The way smells still linger and memories still sit like thick dust on untouched shelves.In which Sicheng is finding it hard to face the fact that the love of his life is really gone, no matter how dangerous their line of work may be.





	1. Chasing Ghosts

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is my first published fic and I'd like to thank Beezy for helping me plot this thing even if just a little. I hope you all have a nice yuwin time.

“Two whiskeys over here, please.” Kun says before he straddles the bar stool in front of him. From the corner of Sicheng’s eye he can see that Kun is wearing a plaid blazer, the dark red lines forming a grid pattern across his chest. It goes well with the dark color of his hair, pushed up and back and out of his eyes. It’s always how he wears it, like he wants the whole world to see his face. Sicheng should’ve anticipated this, Kun always knows where to find him, no matter where he tries to hide. Being the leader of the city’s strongest mafia has its perks that way.

Sicheng sighs, wrapping his fingers around the smooth glass as soon as the bartender sets it down. “You’re ruining my plan.”

“Oh what? You mean the men eyeing you in the corner won’t take you back to their private room if you have me buying you drinks?” He doesn’t sound smug, more rhetorical than anything else. As if he assumed Sicheng would be doing something stupid, which is only half the reason Kun is here.

“They won’t think I’m innocent with Qian Kun buying me drinks, no.” Sicheng confirms dryly. He hasn’t met his eyes but he knows Kun is looking at him, short glass dangling dangerously between his slim fingers. The bar is dark, the only light being the fake lanterns that line either side of the drinks on the back wall. There’s a chandelier that hangs from the center of the room, dazzling the chairs and tables in hints of crystal light. It does nothing for visibility, Sicheng thinks. Only there for a show of wealth. He used to love it in here, oddly enough. Used to come here with Yuta whenever they were both in the city at the same time. Sicheng thinks of shot glasses full of rum, jet black hair framing a perfectly angled face. Most of the time vision becomes increasingly blurred with intoxication, but Yuta looks _better_. More beautiful than Sicheng can ever describe with words. The bar is nothing but dull now, as most things are without Yuta there.

“That pistol hidden in your shirt is good by the way. I almost didn’t notice it pressed against your back. The solid black number does wonders for you.”

“Fuck off, Kun.” Sicheng huffs, it’s short and angry, but he knows Kun doesn’t flinch.

“Who are they?” He juts his chin in the direction of the men Sicheng’s been watching. Before Kun got here they were eyeing him back, slapping each other’s shoulders and laughing as he smiled sheepishly from his spot at the bar. Now they looked at anything except for him and his intimidating company, downing their beers and making plans for the nearest exit. Another dead end, answers Sicheng wouldn’t get. He stops spinning his glass on the wooden surface of the bar when he feels Kun’s hand relocate to his thigh, it’s warm and soft and excruciatingly comfortable where it lands. He speaks again when he knows Sicheng won’t answer, knows the boy doesn’t have the energy to tell him what he can already see. “Come home with me.”

Sicheng looks at him now, searching his face for some sort of grounding. Kun looks back like he’s got all the time in the world, but he knows Kun. Perhaps better than anyone. He’s trained to see the desperation that lies beneath his gaze, the pleas that claw through the air between them. It is like waiting for a glass that has fallen to shatter. Like hoping not to be caught in the crossfire, but unable to look away, until there are shards everywhere, catching the light with every slide on a marble floor. Sicheng and Kun are not in love, they never have been. They just share a similar pain, a wound that only the two of them can understand. Sicheng knows this, knows that falling into Kun’s bed only means another night spent with distractions. Another night not knowing how to cope with the reality he’s now living in. But Sicheng is tired, and as he glances back to the group of cartel members leaving their table, he thinks of the silk sheets lining Kun’s mattress. The way it feels to let go beneath them, to muffle groans and pull hair and float thousands of miles in the air. Only to come back down and sleep for the first time in weeks, if only for a few hours.

 

****  
Sicheng has a habit of getting up early, and by early, it’s about 4am. Usually that’s when the dreams wake him, if he even sleeps at all. His hands clutch the edge of the marble counter in Kun’s bathroom, leaning over the sink to focus on his breathing. The sweat clinging his hair to his forehead feels cold, and he begins to count as his brain recollects the images he saw before he woke up. 1—leather gloves wrapped around the barrel of a small black pistol. The sides etched in a white engraving of thorns and flowers, Yuta’s pistol. 2—a blinding white smile. Teeth perfectly aligned as they laugh on Sicheng’s lips. It’s hard to make out the words that leave them, hard to focus on anything but the breath on his own mouth. He manages to catch it before is slips away. “You’re always so meticulous Sicheng, would you please relax. My Sicheng, please remember to breathe, I’m only a call away.” 3—the ravenous heat. The flames that envelope the station, so explosive that Sicheng can feel it singe his cheeks from several feet away. The way they rise and rise like the bile and panic in his throat. _No_ , he thinks as he runs towards it. _No, no, no_. But it’s no use. He cannot cover ground fast enough, cannot cover any ground at all. The harder he runs, the more it’s apparent he will never reach the station. It moves as he moves, a continuous distance between them. The burning in his chest mirrors the flames before him, and he realizes it’s because his heart is in that station, scorching into nothing but dust and ash while Sicheng is forced to watch. He doesn’t have time to cry out before his eyes fly open, the only sign of reality being the small clock next to Kun’s bed. Red numbers lighting angrily into the dark and quiet room.

“You look like you’ve seen a ghost.” Kun finds him again, leaning further into the sink than before. The bile from his dream threatens to meet him in real life and Sicheng wonders how long he’ll have to breathe steadily before having control over his own body again. “You’re still dreaming of him.” There’s a deafening pause that hangs in the air after the word ‘him’ and Sicheng wishes that Kun would stop acting like it’s a distant memory. Like Yuta was someone they knew in passing, a steady moving ship through the islands that are their lives. Sicheng raises himself slowly, adjusting himself to his full height before meeting Kun’s eyes in the mirror. Even as they stand there, he waits until he feels like his lungs won’t collapse before speaking.

“I see Yuta all the time, I just happen to see him more when I’m asleep.” Sicheng hates that he seems so weak in moments like this. Hates that the trauma of losing Yuta is his biggest vulnerability as much as his strongest motivator. Sicheng is trained extensively in physical combat, a living weapon. He’s gone on countless missions for Kun, killed dozens of men and broken plenty of bones. He isn’t _weak_ , he never has been. But he certainly isn’t himself, and he hasn’t been for a very long time. Kun hasn’t either, it shows in the way he flinches at the sound of Yuta’s name. Like it doesn’t fit right in the air, too heavy for his shoulders to handle.

“I miss him too, you know.” And Sicheng knows, how could he not know. If Kun didn’t miss Yuta they wouldn’t be doing this. Indulging in each other’s pain just to distract from their own. Fucking each other until it means nothing, until the both of them might disappear. Gone as though they never existed. For Sicheng, there was something almost holy about sleeping with his lover’s best friend. As if he’s somehow keeping Yuta with him all while trying to get rid of him. But that’s just a scapegoat if Sicheng is honest. He knows that’s just what he tells himself. After all, the distraction from the pain is far more overbearing than the guilt he feels after. If Kun is the same he doesn’t show it, and Sicheng is fine with that, he thinks.

“Lucas said there was cartel activity in the area the week of the explosion. I’ve been scouting those men for days, trying to find out if they had any information.” It was the truth. Sicheng knew Kun would ask him eventually, if not now then most certainly in the confines of his own office. He needed to know everything about his employee’s prospects whether he was sleeping with them or not. He hadn’t remained the ring leader by letting people keep secrets.

“Lucas,” Kun snorts, shaking his head as he moves to lean against the bathroom counter. His muscles shift as he crosses his arms over his bare chest and Sicheng takes a moment to admire how truly breathtaking he is. He’s always thought Kun’s looks added to his power. “I should’ve known he’d been helping you with this.” Sicheng doesn’t have a response for this, it’s not like Kun didn’t know Sicheng had been investigating on his own for months. Tracking down any lifeline that might lead to what had happened. After the case was officially closed, written off by law enforcement as an unfortunate gas leak, Kun stopped his investigation as well. Not wanting to waste man power on beating a dead horse, literally. Sicheng could understand how Kun felt, but his exhaustion only pushed him further, rather than smother him like it did Kun.

“And when you got them where you wanted them?” Kun asks, turning his head to get a look at Sicheng’s profile. The yellow lights cast a soft glow on the crown of his dark hair, and if Kun didn’t know better he’d think Sicheng looks like an angel, but he does know better. And Sicheng is no angel.

“I would interrogate them.” Sicheng responds, leaning further onto the counter. His weight on his arms stretching his muscles so tight he wonders how much it would take for them to snap.

“And if they didn’t have the answers you wanted?” Kun doesn’t know if he expects an answer or not, although he certainly knows the truth. Knows even as Sicheng glares steadily into the sink that he would’ve killed them where they stood. He would leave no mercy in a world without the one he loved most. “You need to be careful.”

“I can clean up my own messes.” Sicheng retorts. It’s not often that he loses his composure, he isn’t one to raise his voice or disobey. But when it comes to Yuta, it’s hard not to defend himself and the work he’s doing.

Kun sighs, as if he wishes he could end the conversation. As if there’s nothing more he would rather do than pull on Sicheng’s arm, drag him back to bed and ignore the world for just a little longer. Instead, he decides to tackle one more topic. One more statement that Sicheng needs to hear. “You know he’s gone, Sicheng. Tell me you know he’s gone.” And there’s a hole in Sicheng’s chest. A giant, nasty, gaping hole where his heart is supposed to be. He should be shocked that Kun can read him so easily, but he’s not. He thinks back the explosion, the way Kun sat with him for hours in Sicheng’s apartment. There was still a beer bottle on the coffee table, the one Yuta had left sitting before they headed for the station. Even after Sicheng had stopped crying Kun refused to leave. Because if he left, it would be real. Yuta would not come walking through the door with his iridescent smile, laughing about some crude joke Johnny had made on the walk home. Sicheng would have to pick up the beer bottle, wash the sheets. Clean the kitchen and put away his things. His and Yuta’s things. It wasn’t fair, the way a person could still be there without _being there_. The way smells still linger and memories still sit like thick dust on untouched shelves. Kun felt it too, the lack of Yuta taking up space. And it scared him, terrified him really. Kun was meant to be stoic, a strong anchor in the face of chaos and fear. But his best friend had just been fed to fire, Sicheng the only place for him to hide in.

“What if he’s not?” It is the first time he’s entertained the thought out loud. Not wanting to lose the support of Lucas or Taeyong providing him information. As far as they were concerned, Sicheng just wanted revenge. It’s not hard to notice the way they pity him, the way he hardly exists without Yuta there to complete whatever is left of him.

“Sicheng.” The name comes out somewhere between a statement and a question and Kun has to run his hand through his disheveled hair before he can collect his thoughts. “Yuta is dead. I know you don’t want to admit it to yourself, but he’s gone. And I don’t mean sipping red wine in Paris until the coast is clear. I mean gone. Dead. Six feet under.” Sicheng hates that the words don’t sound harsh coming from Kun. They don’t sound powerful or laced with venom like they should. Instead they sound tired, exhausted and matter-of-fact. Kun looks as if he’s trying to tell something to a stubborn child, and for a second Sicheng wishes he could feel as resigned as the man before him.

“What about his DNA, Kun? Why was it never found? You and I both know it wasn’t just a gas leak. It doesn’t make sense.” Kun falters at this, like he’s about to repeat a broken record. Explain the situation again, listen to Sicheng not understand again, relive his best friend’s disappearance again.

“Everything was reduced to ashes,” Kun sighs, unsure why he even brought it up in the first place. “They hardly recovered anyone from the remains, you know he was there, Sicheng. You dropped him off.” It is like a string is being unraveled in Sicheng’s stomach, like the more he stands against counter the more he can feel the world spinning. Loosening the knot that’s been balled in his gut since the accident. If he looks at Kun long enough, he thinks he might be able to see the worry he carries. The way he has to mask himself in front of people, the way he carries lives on his back every day when he steps into the city. It must be so hard keeping people close, especially when you can’t save them all. And you really can’t. But what if Yuta wasn’t gone, what if he really did need help, hiding somewhere they just couldn’t see.

Sicheng doesn’t voice this, not willing to tire either of them more than he already had. Instead, he just nods slowly, tongue tucked defiantly in the crevice of his cheek. Kun doesn’t protest when he slots the gun back unto the waistband of his pants. Slipping his silk black shirt back over his frame before leaving the spacious apartment. Sicheng could find his way back home from Kun’s place blindfolded and backwards if he had to, but it still stings when he leaves without a gentle voice calling after him as he slams the door.


	2. Ace of Spades

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Where's Waldo except it's Where's Yuta and is he a ghost haunting Sicheng? I hope you have a Yuwin time!!
> 
> you can find me on twitter @supryong

_3 Years Prior_

  


“I want you to fight him.” Kun says it like it’s nothing, like he’s just asked Yuta to turn on the TV or pass him his keys on the coffee table. 

 

“You want me to fight him. In my living room.” Yuta’s arms are crossed, one dark eyebrow raised high on his face. Sicheng stands just off center in Yuta’s apartment, watching the two men talk about him like he isn’t there. The situation is odd, for lack of a better word. He’s known Kun for the expanse of an entire hour, Yuta even less. He had managed to charm his way into Kun’s office, convincing the small but skeptic receptionist that he had an appointment and it was urgent and he _really_ must see Kun immediately. He waited until after she was leading him down a long hallway with white stone walls to wonder what kind of mafia leader needed a receptionist. 

 

The thing about living on the street is— people in low places talk. They talk in dark alleyways and under city bridges. They talk about Kun and his business. They talk about how he needs men, trained men he can use as protection. As weapons and hitmen, an agency of sorts. Not everyone is willing to give up what little they have to brandish a gun under Kun’s reputation, not even for that much money. But Sicheng knows how to kill, knows how to use his body and handle amo and living off of stolen convenient store pastries is really getting old. He thinks of his life before the streets, before all the stealing and small drug handles just to have some change for a decent meal. But all he can manage is honey eyes full of anger, the sound of tires on gravel and not enough time to look back. 

 

“He says he has what it takes, I need to see if it’s true.” The words come out curious, eyes still trained on Yuta from where he sits casually at the kitchen counter. They’re close, that much Sicheng can tell. He shifts on his feet, sizing Yuta up while he has the chance. 

 

“So why couldn’t you fight him? There’s a training room in your building.” He isn’t that large of a man, much more tall than he is broad. His black shirt is sleeveless, showing off toned muscles and beautifully slender fingers that circle around his elbows. His onyx hair waves dangerously down his face, and Sicheng isn’t sure what it is, but Yuta looks like he’s constantly on the edge of a smile. Like he knows more than everyone else in the room and he finds it somewhat amusing. 

 

“You’re the best fighter I know. Better than me.” Kun says it with intention, every syllable pushed delicately in his direction. Yuta smiles now, his whole face exploding with so much light Sicheng has to remind himself to take his next breath. He’s never seen a face _so bright,_ he thinks, as he takes a moment to note how Yuta’s cheeks crinkle around his eyes. The way his silver earrings shift as he laughs, the sound melting the air around him into liquid gold. Sicheng almost wishes he didn’t have to fight such a pretty frame. 

 

“You asshole,” Yuta breathes. “You know flattery will get you everywhere with me. So what do you say, man of the hour. Are you down for a fight?” It takes Sicheng a moment to float back down from Yuta’s laugh. To realize he’s been spoken to for the first time since Kun had blindly dragged him to Yuta’s apartment. He straightens now, pushing his shoulders back as far as they go. Yuta may be pretty, but he isn’t money, and he isn’t going to keep Sicheng off the street no matter how ethereal he looks when he laughs. 

 

“What happens if I beat him?” Kun looks as though he expected the question, nodding as he repositions in his chair.

 

“ _If_ you beat Yuta, and I do mean if, then you can work for me. You say you’ve worked in this business before, but I’ll throw you into some training before sending you on missions. You’ll get pay, but you’ll have to give up everything else. My men cut ties with everyone in their lives, no family, no outside friends. It’s protocol.” That won’t be a problem, Sicheng had been severed from everything in his life long before Kun was even an option. 

 

 “Alright.” Sicheng nods. “I’m in.”

 

“You’re not in yet,” Yuta smiles again, and Sicheng has to force his world not to tilt. 

 

“Take off your jacket. If you can pin Yuta for ten seconds or make him tap out—“

 

“Unlikely.” Yuta interrupts, examining Sicheng like he’s the most interesting thing he’s ever seen.

 

“— _then_ we’ll talk business.” Kun manages, shooting Yuta a glare of warning despite the boy’s attention being elsewhere. Sicheng lets out a steady breath as he slips off his jacket, the cool air sending chills up his arms as they leave their warm sleeves. 

 

Yuta’s apartment is small, the living room forming a hard rectangle around them. The walls have been painted a soft shade of yellow and Sicheng can’t help but wonder if Yuta makes them that way. If the light that oozes out of him drenches everything in a warm and sunny haze. It would certainly make sense, and he can’t help but hide a smile under his breath. There’s no coffee table between the couch and TV, only a stretch of dark hardwood that’s been scratched in certain places. It looks lived in, which is more than Sicheng can say for any of the run down buildings he’s been sleeping in for weeks. 

 

“You ready, sunshine?” It’s almost overwhelming, being called a pet-name by someone he’s about to fight. Yuta backs up into the center of the room, uncrossing his arms to fill up more space than before. Sicheng has to smother the butterflies unfurling in his stomach, stuffing them down until they’re nothing but a blip in his mind. 

 

Yuta doesn’t hesitate to swing, lashing out a fist the moment Sicheng gets close enough to reach. There’s no momentary glance, no word from Kun to start, and it takes every reflex for Sicheng to duck. Yuta’s hand grazing mere strands of his dark hair. 

 

“You’re quick,” Yuta smiles, slightly crouched now that the fight has begun. He looks like a cat hunting prey and it’s startling how well the image suits him. 

 

Sicheng doesn’t reply, taking Yuta’s observation as a moment of distraction. He balls his hands into fists and swings, one for a fake upper-cut to Yuta’s gut. His opponent reaches out, heady to block the shot before it can make contact. _Check mate,_ Sicheng thinks as he changes course, maneuvering his other directly to Yuta’s jaw. It takes him a moment to stagger back, slender hand cupped over the aching bone. Sicheng’s knuckles buzz beneath his skin, bruises threatening to bloom like precious flowers. Something in his chest twists, begging him to walk towards Yuta. To touch his face, apologize for what he’s done, but it’s Kun who speaks first. Reminding sicheng that he is not here to play nice. 

 

“Yuta.” It’s a warning, one that hangs thick in the air of the living room.

 

The thing about fighting is it’s visceral. An intangible instinct that settles deep in the veins, surging with adrenalin and the hope for nothing too broken when it’s over. It shows in Yuta’s eyes when he turns to face Sicheng, hand dropping from his face to display a bloodied lip. It looks like it hurts, but he doesn’t show it. Doesn’t miss a beat as he steps towards the boy, flexing and unflexing his fists with every pace. His eyes are dark now, somewhere between amused and angry, and Sicheng bends his knees to brace for impact, planting his feet so he doesn’t fly away. Yuta’s hands are viper quick, snatching Sicheng’s wrist and twisting with full force. There’s a sharp intake of breath as he spins, forced to face Kun with his arm behind his back. There’s a moment where Yuta hesitates, like he doesn’t realize his fingers lose their grip as Sicheng tugs. When his wrist slips free he swings it, using it as leverage to face where Yuta stands behind him. He’s not fast enough, barely registering his movements before another fist collides with Sicheng’s right ear. There’s a violent ringing sound in his skull, his feet trying and failing to keep him grounded in place. He thinks he hears Yuta laugh in the distance, but can’t quite make out anything past his brain vibrating in his skull. He crouches now, bracing behind him with one arm as he extends his left leg. It collides quickly with Yuta’s, hooking behind his kneecaps, and he stumbles forward. 

 

“Fuck,” Yuta manages before he toples to the ground, his palms landing on either side of Sicheng’s head. 

 

“That _hurt_.” Sicheng responds, rocking his thigh between the boy’s legs as he says it. Yuta rolls with the force, groaning obnoxiously as his back faces Sicheng on the floor. There’s a moment of silence that settles in the room before Kun sighs, earning an effort of movement from Yuta, still curled up atop the hardwood. Sicheng crawls to him, forcing him on his back before straddling his waist and pinning his wrists to the floor. 

 

“Do I need to count to ten, or do you tap out?” And Yuta laughs, his gut erupting into shakes beneath Sicheng. If they were under different circumstances he might feel heat at the friction, his cheeks turning red at the thought. There’s blood on Yuta’s teeth, his head arched back to display a forest of black hair all sprawled out beneath him. It takes him awhile to calm down, to stop cackling and howling and huffing at Sicheng’s question. 

 

When he’s finally quiet, flattening down and staring up at Sicheng with eyes full of stars, him and Kun speak at the same exact time. 

 

“ _He’s beautiful.”_

 

“ _He’s hired.”_  

 

****

  


A person with leukemia can have fifty thousand white blood cells in a single drop of blood. Every single cell trying desperately to eliminate its intruder, multiplying by the thousands despite their futile attempts. Sicheng is a white blood cell, he thinks, as he stares intensely at the water bottle cap left on his counter. His entire life consists of him trying to fight off threats, to eradicate the unordinary that has been every day of his life. 

 

It’s still early in the morning, dawn barely slipping through the blinds in Sicheng’s living room windows. The early rays cast the room in a hazy blue, barely reaching the open kitchen where Sicheng’s puzzlement is displayed on the counter. He’s hardly been home ten minutes, his bags still slumped at the door where he’d dropped them when he entered. It’s been ten days since he’s been here, Kun insistent that he be put on a mission overseas with Johnny and Jungwoo. Men from one of their partner companies had been caught smuggling drugs to a private buyer, pocketing the money for themselves as they ran their own operations. Kun wanted his cleanest men on the job, a sub-team that could be diplomatic but swift if needed. Sicheng didn’t quite know how Johnny contributed to being _diplomatic_ but he hadn’t argued. Only voicing it to the two of them when they were alone on their flight there. 

 

“What the fuck does that mean? I can be diplomatic.” Johnny had spat, Jungwoo smothering a laugh as he threw back his champaign. 

 

But Sicheng is clean. The cleanest on Kun’s roster, both on and off the playing field. Taeyong always says Sicheng would play Russian Roulette before letting anyone trash his apartment. Besides Yuta, he thinks. Yuta left everything everywhere. Which is why he stands perplexed now, eyebrows furrowed at the plastic cap on his counter like it’s the most complex thing he’s ever seen. Sicheng doesn’t leave things lying around to be picked up and thrown away later. A person could leave a lot of loose ends that way, and Sicheng likes being untraceable. 

 

He’s one frazzled thought shy of asking the white plastic where the hell it came from aloud when he hears a noise sound off down the hall. It’s muffled and quiet, and if Sicheng weren’t trained to pick up on his environment he might have missed it. But he doesn't. Instead, he reaches for the small handgun holstered to his back, his fingers easing around the cold metal and grip. He taps his forefinger against the slot of the trigger before he starts to move, an old signal he and Yuta used to use on missions. Now it’s more habit than anything else. 

 

There’s a slight _crunch_ coming from behind the bathroom door, getting louder the closer he gets. Sicheng places his back to the wall beside the knob, easing himself flat against it with the force of his shoulders. They ache with fatigue and he takes a moment to assess what might happen if he has to fight. If there is someone hiding in his apartment they clearly aren’t here for biscuits and tea, and Sicheng doesn’t know how much more his tired body can take. He’d also rather not clean blood off of his bathroom tiles.  It would be so inconvenient. 

 

With the gun now pointed at the ground before the door, he uses his other hand to latch around the silver appliance. Holding his breath as it turns like it will somehow make him more quiet. More invisible to the human eye. 

 

 _“Don’t move!”_ Sicheng shouts at the same time the door thrusts open. He points his gun at the figure, willing his pupils to dilate enough to make out the face in his less than ideally lit bathroom. 

 

 _“_ Don’t shoot me I haven’t had sex yet! _”_ The intruder yells in unison, slinking back as far as he can from the barrel of Sicheng’s gun. 

 

He turns on the light to see Lucas sat on top of his toilet seat. Laptop slumping on his thighs as orange colored Bugle chips cover four of his five spaced out fingers, each pointed in Sicheng’s direction like a claw of warning. 

 

“What the _fuck_ are you doing here, Lucas? I almost killed you.” Lucas seems to relax at seeing his friend, slumping his shoulders into their usual hunched position as he looks back at the screen of his computer. 

 

“Hendery isn’t speaking to me.” He replies, as if that explains why he’s cooped up in a dark bathroom in Sicheng’s apartment like some lanky gremlin. 

 

“What do you mean he’s not speaking to you?”

 

“I mean he changed the locks. I can't get in.” Lucas clarifies, extending one of his chip enclosed fingers back in Sicheng’s face while he examines whatever is lit on his screen. “Bugle?” 

 

Sicheng ignores the offer, placing his weapon back in its holster and leaning against the door frame in front of the boy. Lucas is one of Kun’s best hackers, he can find his way through zeros and ones better than he ever could a paper bag. It’s endearing almost, the way he has more knowledge on technology than he ever would common sense, and Sicheng can’t help but look after him. Can’t help but want to protect him even when he’s breaking and entering into Sicheng’s apartment. He doesn’t seem to notice he’s being stared at, and if he wants to talk about what’s going on with him and his best friend he doesn’t voice it.

 

“Okay,” Sicheng responds, dragging out each syllable, hoping they’ll help him navigate the situation. “How did you get in here, though?” 

 

“Your bedroom window.”

 

“My bedroom window.” He repeats. Lucas says it like it’s the obvious explanation. 

 

“It was unlocked.” Lucas shrugs. His light brown hair falls in his eyes and if Sicheng weren’t so irritated, he might move to touch it. To brush it past the boy’s forehead, ruffle it until it’s a tangled mess in his hands. Lucas can handle himself, for the most part, but there’s a side of him that lives for the wall he’s surrounded by. The one that makes him hide in dark places and offer up salty snacks instead of talking about his problems. Kun had taken him in about a year after Sicheng and, without much of a choice on his part, Lucas took to him. Attaching himself to the older boy like a leech refusing to leave its host. That was, until he found Hendery, for which he was happy to free Sicheng of his vicious grip on companionship. Now they were a team, working together to provide Kun with any intel that he needed. They sourced information, made fake IDs, conjured up passports. Whatever Kun requires to carry out business, they do hand in hand. “You still never gave me a key to this place.” 

 

“That was on purpose.” Sicheng responds. He’s pacing his way to his bedroom now, hardwood creaking beneath the hard soles of his boots. The space is untouched. Desk perfectly organized against the right wall of the room, bed sheets folded back neatly before his pillows. The bookshelf in the left corner is ordinarily tidy, books placed alphabetically on each of the three shelves. It would almost be perfect if it weren’t for the fact that Sicheng never left anything out of line. No trash laid out, nothing put where it didn’t belong. But as he looks at his window frame he sees them, two perfect white window notches turned completely to the left; _unlocked._ The ledge feels cold beneath his fingertips and Sicheng wishes he could settle the feeling in his stomach, like his hopes might lurch too far up his throat and out his mouth, knocking out some teeth in the process. There’s a smile stretching his lips, cracking his world into tiny crevices of light he hasn’t seen in months. Sicheng told Kun he sees Yuta all the time, knew that the smell lingering in his living room some mornings wasn’t phantom pain. If Yuta was haunting him like this then maybe that’s okay, but something in Sicheng wishes he had said no to the mission when Kun had proposed it. There’s a rushing in his ears, a sensation he chooses to ignore until he hears Lucas behind him. It breaks the sound when he speaks from the doorway. 

 

“It is weird though. I thought you never left anything to this place unlocked.” His voice sounds a million miles away, or maybe Sicheng is just lost inside his own head. In his own realm where boys with stars for eyes still roam big cities on their own. 

 

“I don’t.” He says, and there’s a smile in his response.

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome to my first ao3 fic!! I've had this idea for awhile now and have it (mostly) plotted out so I hope you enjoy the story. Thank you to anyone who takes the time to read this and I hope you have a lovely yuwin time.


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